The Ghost from a Dead Future
by Blakithleo
Summary: So Chrom dealt the final blow against Grima, putting the Fell Dragon to sleep once again. However, the beast would not stay dead, and on their way back to Ylisse, the Shepherds are ambushed once again by risen, and a mysterious person, for they have more reason than most to want Robin, Morgan and Lucina dead. Oneshot


**Author's note: There's quite a bit of action in this story, hopefully it was alright :/. I wrote this fic mostly because I hate it when anybody chooses for Chrom to end Grima on their first playthrough, it just doesn't feel right. So I wrote this, detailing what might happen if you chose that path.  
Anyway, I'm just crazy :P Hopefully enjoy the story, and please review if you feel so inclined!**

* * *

He looked on with tired pained eyes, examining the chaos that was sown by his own hand. Reeking boxes were potent indeed, he was even worried that he'd gone over the top for a moment.

Risen had appeared out of nowhere, and the Shepherds were caught by surprise during the first hours of light that day. Many of their toughest members were busy with the wary knight's fanatical fitness hour, and cut off from the more vulnerable soldiers, and their tactician's commands were only able to influence those within earshot. It was a brilliant surprise attack, one that would no doubt defeat almost any army, but the keyword was almost. The incredible skill and camaraderie of the legendary Shepherds shone, even though about half of them weren't receiving orders, and their wounded were covered by their allies. Even in this slaughter, not a single of them had died yet, which was exactly what he had wanted. All of this was to simply distract them for him.

Calmly, he left his hiding spot behind the tree, and entered the melee. Before he'd gone ten paces, an axe wielding risen lunged at him, only to disintegrate into ash in mid-air, tome in hand. Unsheathing his sword as well, he strolled past a pair of red and green paladins fighting a risen general, past a scantily dressed dark mage and a priest. As he neared his target, a massive orange armoured shepard that he somehow didn't manage to see until the last moment, ordered him to stop, and when he simply ignored him, he swung his lance at him. Annoyed, he leapt out of the way, and broke the man's jaw with a sleep staff. _Tsk._

However, that wasn't the end of his attackers, the redheaded pegasus knight that saw him attack her ally had charged at him, only for him to blast her unconscious with a powerful Rexcalibur spell. Stepping over her semi-comatose body and her mount on the ground, he found two of his targets. It was a blue haired princess and a white haired tactician. When the female was fighting a risen barbarian, as the tactician was about to help her, he shot the man with Thoron. He screamed in agony, and that attracted the attention of several other shepard, including the princess he was paired up with. Preparing into a defensive stance, he readied himself for probably the second toughest fight in his life.

* * *

Robin was hit by magic when Lucina wasn't looking, even though they promised that they would protect each other. He was alright, but wounded. Turning to see the attacker, she charged, Falchion drawn. Sweeping a powerful slash, she was amazed to see the mage parry her attack with lightning speed. _Killing edge,_ eyes wide open in surprise. Completely not what she expected, her enemy wielded the killing edge in tandem with a Thoron, and whenever she blocked a blade strike, magic was shot at her legs. Even with Falchion, she was hard pressed on the defensive. Gritting her teeth, she parried sideways, shifted her body weight, twisted her sword, and snapped her opponent's blade in half. Lunging for the kill, screaming, he just looked at her with boredom, disappeaing right from her sight, only to materialise beside her, and smash the pommel of the broken sword across her face.

Disoriented, she staggered backwards, he walked up to her, and stuck his wrecked blade right in her stomach. Lucina fell, and collapsed onto the grass. At that moment, the battle started to turn in favour of the Shepherds, and a few of them saw her go down from a mysterious hooded foe, dressed similarly to Robin, in a black cloak, without Grimleal symbols.

"What did you do to mother?!" A blue haired tactician about his age swung her silver sword at him, only for him to sidestep, and duck under her next strike. Anger and fury clouded her mind, and her attacks were not well thought out, he parried her then, closed the distance and delivered a punch onto his great-grandmother's face, and slammed a roundhouse kick, sending her flying.

By this moment, the risen were almost all gone, and everyone saw him standing over the almost dead body of Lucina and the unconscious form of Morgan. An arrow flew at him out of nowhere, but he shot it out of the air with spell, and blasted the barrage of javelins and spears flying at him with another Rexcalibur. A Feroxi man, so fast that he was almost a blur, swept a killing edge at him, but he'd simply parried with his sword, and at point-blank range shot the myrmidon in the face with a Nosferatu. Gasps rang out of the army as they saw not only had he beat Lon'qu, but it was as if one of their best went down like it wasn't even a contest.

Surrounded by the Shepards now, there was a tension. They saw that he was no risen, but the sword that the man carried, was none other than the legendary Falchion. It wasn't Lucina's, he didn't have time to loot her body, and he hadn't fought Chrom yet. With a plain facial expression, he drew his third sword, for all to see. In his hands he wielded two Falchions. Nobody but the chosen of Naga's bloodline could wield this weapon forged from the goddess's own fang, yet this challenger held two, as sharp as it would be. After a moment, hesitantly, Chrom stood forwards.

"Fight me." Were the only words he spoke, and the attacker nodded.

What happened next was so fast that it could barely be seen by the human eye. Chrom made the first move, aiming for an over head strike, only to be ducked, the other ducking, and spinning with both blades, at Chrom's legs. Barely avoiding in time, the prince knew that it would be impossible to defend, so he went for the offensive, each and every of his attacks slapped out of the way. It was almost as if he was being toyed with. However, as he went for the killing blow, as Chrom defended himself, he caught a glimpse of the enemy's eyes, a mark in each of them, bright on a black iris. The mark of Naga, the very same as Lucina's, as well as the bright purple mark of Grima, unmistakable, in the other. He only saw for a moment, as he blocked the attack, only to be slammed down onto the ground, and received a boot heel to the face.

Robin barely recovered conciousness only to see the bodies of his family, Lucina, Morgan and Chrom lying on the ground at the feet of this man. Enraged, he charged up his spell, only to be stopped and held back by Sumia. "Wha-!" He cried out in anger, only for everyone to see the man suddenly collapse onto his knees, and then after a minute, fall over as well. It took five Shepherds and all the restraint they had to not rush up and impale the enemy with his Levin sword.

* * *

The boy woke up, in a bed, and a wraps around his waist. Fighting against their Exalt, at the last moment, when he thought that Chrom had blocked, instead the blue haired prince had stabbed him. The Exalt had gambled that he did not aim for a killing blow, and abused that, and stabbed him, being knocked unconscious as well. Sitting up in bed, he realised that he had lost, failed in his plan. He was captured by the Shepherds. Why they didn't kill him, he had a sliver of an idea.

Looking sideways, he saw a mirror on the wall. He was barely by look, age nineteen, with snow white hair like Robin, black coloured eyes, with the twin marks in his eyes.

Suddenly several members of the Shepherds entered his tent, the tall mage he recognised as Miriel, Chrom, a significantly more calm Robin, a knight named Stahl, Lissa and Frederick. Smirking, he looked into the eyes of Robin, as if goading him, earning him a stare from the grandmaster. Before either did anything though, Chrom spoke him. "Who are you?" A small chuckle escaped him lips, before he turned and spoke to his ancestor.

"My name doesn't matter, I am however, Once and Future Exalt of Ylisse, Khan of East Feroxi and Heir to the Plegian Throne." Smirking his signature smile, he looked into the eyes of each and every of the others in the tent. "I suppose that you already had a few hints, otherwise I would be lying five foot deep not in a sick bed." Sighing, Chrom replied. "Yes, that has something to do with it, as well as none of your victims being dead. Lucina took the worst blow, but even she'll recover." Pausing for a moment, Chrom stood perplexed. "If you truly are who you say you are, why are you here? What happened in the future? And Khan of East Feroxi and heir to Plegia?"

"I was born to my parents, my mother was the granddaughter of Morgan and Inigo, Severa and Owain. My father was the grandson of the next Khan of East Feroxi after Khan Flavia died and Cynthia, Gerome and Nah." He explained. "I see then, where you received you bloodline." Commented Miriel. "I suppose, though none of that really matters now. Everyone all died from where I came from. I don't suppose you can guess why?" The room was silent for a moment, before Chrom answered. "I don't know. We slew Grima but a week ago, no, I did with my own blade. We were marching back to Ylisse when you attacked us."

Laughing again, mocking the Shepard, the future Exalt responded. "Yes, exactly. You put Grima down, to sleep. He rose again in my time, and when we, the future Shepherds put him down again, we finished the job." He paused for a moment, as if rethinking his next statement, but said it anyway.

"My younger sister, was the vessel for Grima. We had to put her down, and in the end, she had to kill herself. By then, there were only four of us left. I had led them through hell and back, without casualties, much like your tactician, only to lose everyone on the back of that forsaken beast. My friends, your descendants, they all died. Even the last four of us, only I got off the back of Grima's falling body alive. There was no Naga to magically whisk us off, and I only barely survived the blunt impact of the fall." There were no tears this time, the sheer hate in his voice evident. "All of that could have been avoided if your tactician had slain Grima. After it was all over, I sought the last of Naga's power, to come back here, and end my own bloodline before this could happen. Why do you think I only targeted Robin, Lucina and Morgan?"

The faces of the Shepherds in the tent were filled with a mixture of hate, disgust and sorrow at hearing that story. In fact, most of the Shepherds had gathered around the outside, and heard everything. There were murmurs of 'What was the point of all we did then?' or 'How could all that happen?'. He just stared into the eyes of Chrom, as if testing him. Sighing, Chrom asked. "I don't think you'll ever forgive us, but can you please tell me how we can avoid this future?"

"Simple, let me kill who I came for." Shaking his head, the Exalt sighed. "Not possible."

"Then you are dooming the world, and for that, I can't hate you enough." Suddenly he broke into a coughing fit, and choked up some blood. "It seems that my wounds from Grima have reopened. Even if I heal again, I won't have more than a month to live, so I can't help you."

Gritting his teeth, Robin stormed out of the tent, and left. Several of the others left as well, to find him, leaving Chrom alone with Edward, and after a moment, Chrom left as well. Staring up at the top of the room, he sighed. That night, he left his Falchions, got dressed, geared up, and slipped out of camp, far away, towards a far away lake, in the middle of the eve.

Unsheathing a knife, he murmured. "I suppose that I did all that I could. I'm sorry everybody, my love. I didn't know that our ancestors were so soft." Raising the blade, and plunging it into himself, he ended his own story.

~[+]~


End file.
